Over the last few weeks we've been concentrating on the attack and encouraging you to think thematically as well as to calculate concrete variations. While each position will have its unique features, there are recurring patterns in attacking chess. If you can study and become familiar with them, it will help you recognise them when they occur over the board, saving you valuable time.

Readers often ask us to recommend books and DVDs, but with the huge volume of chess literature available, the problem is finding works of genuine usefulness to the average player. On attacking chess, there are some truly excellent works around – from Vukovic's 1963 classic The Art of Attack in Chess to DK's own Powerplay DVD series from ChessBase.

Today's position is taken from Excelling at Combinational Play by the Danish grandmaster Jacob Aagaard. This is not a comprehensive survey of attacking patterns (Aagaard's later two-volume Attacking Manual series is fuller – all titles are published by Everyman Chess), but it contains a lively introduction along with 500 useful exercises and solutions: hours of fun – or frustration, depending on what kind of day you're having.

If you had the white pieces here you'd probably be pretty excited, because with so many of your pieces around the enemy king you'd be fairly certain there was a winning combination somewhere. But with your queen under attack, you might also be a little nervous. We all know the feeling: one wrong foot and our beautiful attack crumbles into nothing. 1 Bxg6 looks inviting but it would be a big mistake – 1...Qxf2+, and now the boot's on the other foot. The correct move is 1 Qxg6, and after Black's reply hxg6, White followed up with 2 h5. After Rxf7 3 hxg6+ Kg8 4 gxf7+ Kf8 5 Ne6+, Black resigned.

Next week, we'll finish our series on the attack with a position from another recommended title, and on 14 September we will be announcing the shortlist for our fifth annual chess book of the year award. Email us with your own favourites.